Never in the annals of Washington DC’s history have three bureaucrats been so anxious to shout their failures from every rooftop. But that’s exactly what Strzok, Clapper, and especially Brennan have been doing by blasting Trump for not picking a fight with Putin over their failure to stop Russian interference in the 2016 election.

What Democrats, Trump critics like Senator John McCain, and Witch Hunters like Robert Mueller wanted President Trump to do would jeopardize the lives and safety of American military and intelligence officers around the world and make international relations infinitely more complex and difficult.

President Trump’s recognition that the United States cannot and should not continue to subsidize the quality of life for our allies is hardly a conspiracy theory, but an overdue recognition that the Reagan defense build-up was expended long ago, and if the Western alliance is to be maintained, then all its beneficiaries must pay their share.

The president’s willingness to meet with nations at odds with America deserves praise. He need not befriend foreign leaders. However, he should communicate with them. If nothing else, the president needs to ensure that both Americans and Russians better understand each other and the issues which unite as well as divide us.

Long after the close of World War II, the Western Europeans have recovered economically, overturned alien communist regimes, and absorbed Central and Eastern European states into the European project. Collectively they vastly outstrip the remains of the Soviet Union, so why won't they defend themselves?

Do we really want to cede to folks of the temperament of Mikhail Saakashvili an ability to instigate a war with a nuclear-armed Russia, which every Cold War president was resolved to avoid, even if it meant accepting Moscow’s hegemony in Eastern Europe all the way to the Elbe? Alliances, after all, are the transmission belts of war.

Taking NATO membership off the table would remove Moscow’s incentive to keep the Ukrainian conflict alive. Ukraine could develop economically and politically as it wished. Sanctions could end, encouraging economic integration from Europe through Ukraine onto Russia.

During the 2016 Republican convention, the story goes, the Trump campaign weakened a critical passage in the GOP platform to go easy on Russia. The Trump team acted, according to this narrative, as part of an ongoing conspiracy with Russian President Vladimir Putin to help Donald Trump win the White House. But that is not what happened. In fact, an already-tough portion of the Republican platform dealing with Russia was strengthened, not weakened, at the GOP convention.

NATO should add nations only if they increase the security of the whole. Since U.S. would do most of the heavy lifting in any conflict with nuclear-armed Russia, the critical question for Washington is whether adding a new member would increase Americans’ security.

Washington needs to restore a working relationship with Moscow on multiple issues. That doesn’t mean trusting Vladimir Putin. It does mean making policy in accord with the way the world is, not the way we wish it was.

Rex Tillerson was the chairman and chief executive officer of the seventh largest company in the world. That means he is likely to be at least as capable a Secretary of State as Hillary Clinton or John Kerry.

There is no evidence that the Putin government intends to start an aggressive war against Europe, and no alliance member, including the Baltic States and Poland, has boosted military outlays as if it believed conflict was imminent. Rather, the Europeans have concentrated on demanding that America do more.

NATO should be turned over to the Europeans, allowing them to handle their defense as they desire. This would not mean cutting relations. But it does mean Washington should stop subsidizing its wealthier cousins when the latter don’t feel like paying for their own defense.

Neither party establishment is prepared to advance a strategy for victory, neither party establishment is prepared to successfully “wage peace.” Only Donald Trump was prepared to say that endless war is not just political folly, but an indecent sacrifice of American lives and treasure.

Former NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s greatest fear appears to be that Donald Trump might be elected and end Washington’s unique global role: “What is at stake here is the American role as the global superpower.” Meaning America should continue to foot the bill in lives and treasure to protect countries that can and should protect themselves.

The U.S. is expected to protect virtually every prosperous, populous, industrialized nation. But that’s just a start. Washington also must coddle, pamper, praise, uplift, pacify, encourage, and otherwise placate the same countries because they now believe it to be America’s duty to handle their defense. Alas, U.S. leaders have been only too willing to enable this counterproductive behavior. Except for Donald Trump.

The way Washington won agreement from some nuclear-capable powers to abstain from going nuclear is to provide a “nuclear umbrella,” that is, promise to use nukes to defend them if necessary. As a result, the price of nonproliferation in East Asia is America’s willingness to risk Los Angeles to protect Seoul and Tokyo, and maybe Taipei and Canberra too. Trump was right, the U.S. ought to discuss whether those commitments are still in our interest.